Homeward bound (Gospel Without Compass)
by OnceABlueMoon
Summary: Bodyswap AU in which Fran gets lost in the large scheme of things, and Hibari picks up drifting feathers.


Title: Homeward bound (Gospel Without Compass)  
Author: OnceABlueMoon  
Rating: T  
Pairing: Fran & Hibari Kyoya

Tags/Warnings: none

Summary: Bodyswap AU in which Fran gets lost in the large scheme of things, and Hibari picks up drifting feathers.

Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

Written for the khrrarepairweek Day 6 - Cloud Day: Bodyguard/Hitman AU | Kidnapping (…even though the kidnapping ended up so out of place that it became an omake). The original inspiration, however, was a lovely ask from metronomeihear with the prompts ''Hibari and Fran'' and ''the pretender''. I adored writing this!

* * *

It's terrifying, Fran thinks sometimes, how easy it is to melt into Hibari's skin. It's so obvious to him, when he sees his own body walk by, green hair loose underneath the hat; that's not his gait- he walks a millisecond slower, just a little less brisk. That's not his joke- sure, it _sounds_ like it's his, but it isn't, because Hibari talks just a little lower, the way Fran's own voice is not meant to be used.

It hurts, knowing the others don't notice.

Kusakabe noticed it immediately. Sawada's eyes linger on him when he enters the room, but he's got hyper intuition. It's not cheating- Fran's Varia, in the Varia there is no cheating, only power, and those who don't have the power to succeed are eliminated.

The Varia is cold halls, corpses in closets, the smell of rotten-don't-find-out-for-you-own-sanity. Slinking through the mansion is strange, as if walking through a space that doesn't exist, a parking lot, an airport, a stairwell.

Places that don't have a right to exist, other than being a portal to another place.

The sound of shattering glass, a screaming Squalo and swoosh from a knife in the dark, aimed at his heart.

The Varia mansion doesn't feel like a home, but the others treat it like one, so maybe it's just Fran.

He doesn't belong there. Nor did he belong with Mukuro and his gang.

It was illusions, and strange places. It was a man in his head, who had a guarded, hot-cold, hurt heart entangled in a war with his mind. It was fashion disasters, and screaming, a woman playing on her clarinet, speaking French together late at night. It was calling Ken a dog, while simultaneously being the one receiving the treats. It was asking Chikusa to teach him tricks with yoyo's- a childish fit of adventure, quickly brushed off afterward (and if Fran was often found swirling Bel-senpai's knives around his finger, fingers jerking as if reeling something in then that was his business).

It was… Avoiding Mukuro's previous apprentice when she visited, because Fran was not made for warm cheeks and Kuromu (Chrome? He was never quite sure about the pronunciation- Mukuro kept switching between them) was way too pretty.

And before Mukuro, there was his grandmother, apple pie and the sound of Au Claire de la lune- as if she knew that no door of love would ever be open to him.

He doesn't remember his parents.

But that's all backwards. He was with his parents. They died. Not much difference, it was, with his grandmother. He certainly couldn't protest as a baby.

Maybe that's why he didn't protest either when Mukuro came to get him. Maybe that's why he stayed, when Squalo and Bel-senpai stole him away in the night. He never struggled, that's for certain.

At this point in his life, it's more than clear: Fran is not the one moving, he's the component that stays in place, until others move him. Like a coffee cup, lifted from the cabinet, filled, drunk from, and when the liquid was gone and only the bitter suds remained, they rinsed him off to be drunk from by the next person.

So when he woke up, like this, in Hibari's body… He just went with it.

It's not strange. Not at all.

Fran has no home, has no place where he belongs, lives his life like that cup until it falls and shatters.

So why, oh, why, must Hibari look at him like that?

Those are his own eyes staring back at him, and pity tastes like burned toast.

Fran's never been shy about spitting food he doesn't like out.

* * *

Hibari has never been shy either, about biting people to death or otherwise. If there was a time he might've clutched his mother's skirts, then it was an act from a past, long-forgotten life. (The blood, though, he never forgot. Neither did he forget his uncle's face when he came to Namimori to visit his sister, only to find out the Triads already visited and left him a little present in the form of her dead cold body and a deeply traumatised, disturbed nephew.

Fon is the one who coaxed him out of the forest, wild as an animal, raw and _hurting_ and if there's anyone who understands what it's like not to belong, it's Hibari.

The difference between the pineapple's green apprentice and him? Hibari has learned the world will never change, not unless you make it. Fran… Took one look and was content to remain where he was, shoved and passed around by others. Too lazy to lift a finger, or perhaps, too sad.

He doesn't know what it's like to have your mother's still warm blood on your face, to watch her mow down two men with her, telling you to _run_ because those bastards can't have the satisfaction of killing you both.

Would it have cost her so much to tell him that she loved him? …Would it have changed a thing?

Hibari has calmed down. He is a murderer, he is mafia. He is Namimori's protector, he is Namimori's demon. He has a fire in his soul, but his soul is not a fire, and his bones are deep, dark and old.

He is the forest to Fran's pine tree, mirror image of what could have been and perhaps, a vision of the future.

Neither of them are interested in that.

Fran isn't even interested in getting his own body back- but Hibari is, because Fran is _short_ and does not have the proper muscles for tonfa wielding. Also, Hibari isn't going to be an eighteen-year-old snot again, so that's that.

Now. To get the carnivore into line.

* * *

Receiving memories from ten years in the future, just a month or two, didn't feel like gaining memories- no, it felt like losing them.

There was nothing stranger than a ten-year gap between your current self and the one you remembered there being in the future- you were that person, yet not, and it messed you up.

Nobody had expected the effects to reach this far, though.

* * *

Chrome's eyes flit through the room. Nothing unusual 'bout that. She did that- it was a thing. Fran wants to bash his head against the door, until it's good and bloody. This is absolute hell. Whenever he snaps back, somehow, she's right there, next to the Boss, painting his toenails as he did hers (how she survived he had no idea, but then again, she had been Mukuro-sama's apprentice, and it showed). Whenever he snaps forward- like an elastic, boom, back into Hibari- she's somehow in front of him, all purple hair and… and…

Squalo, that filthy traitor, _called Fran out on his blushing._

God have mercy on him.

(Hibari offers to beat him up next time they swapped, and Fran doesn't know how to deal with that either. Is Hibari defending his… honor? Feelings? Saving his own skin by making sure Fran didn't do something stupid like getting killed over his hormones? Nah, too much effort, and Hibari knows that.

...Doesn't he?)

* * *

Maybe in another world, Mukuro came after Fran. Maybe in another world, Fran learned to fight. Maybe in another world- but there is this world only, and Fran must live in it.

''Then live and fight, carnivore.''

There are many things that Fran has learned by now, and though sometimes Hibari's body feels more like home than his own, how sometimes his skin itches as if he doesn't belong in his own body… Fran is home. In Namimori, where the sun shines, where Kusakabe keeps a watchful eye on him, where Sawada Nana smiles knowingly and gives him a juice box and a snack for on the way. The Varia halls are still cold, but somedays, Boss' smirks just shy of amusement, somedays, Squalo looks at him and speaks a little softer, somedays, Belphegor saves dessert for him. Other days, Lussuria drags Levi and Fran shopping, and they bond over sore feet and Lussuria's happy smiles.

…For the first time in his life, Fran is not content with being a coffee cup, and Hibari seizes the moment and exploits it.

He'll teach the child how to sharpen his teeth yet.

* * *

Fran is fifteen, still a child, and maybe, just maybe, it's going to be alright.

* * *

 **Omake:**

Somewhere, Fran just knew, Mukuro was laughing his ass off.

As far as Hibari was concerned, all Fran needed to do was _cease getting kidnapped_.

Hibari didn't give a damn about the stained glass. He wanted his fucking body back, and preferably before he did something like accidentally slit the green carnivore's wrist on said stained glass while bursting through.

Why did the baby carnivore get kidnapped again? Hibari needed to reconsider Fran's carnivore status like yesterday.


End file.
